Originally post here, some schmuck in texas adviced me to make a fan post, so I came here. I'm not in the business circle, but my semi knowledge is already able to tell.

Basically what I'm saying is, Being Asian is not a disadvantage, I don’t believe there’s genetic disadvantages for Asian to be successful in MMA.
Training in Asia is the real disadvantage.

MMA training here is far behind.

The only UFC fighter in China, Tiequan Zhang, can’t keeps his own gym because of the high rent in Beijing, moving location hurts.

Several BJJ gyms opened up then closed down, the biggest gym in China——Heroes’ Gym(which is actually pretty good, they got a full size cage) is suffering a closedown, members are sueing them.

Fighters don’t know how to cut weight, when Tiequan fights at 145, he’s literally 145 pounds. Just look at his fight with Danny Downes at 155 and see the size difference.
(But we are progressing on that, lately Pat Healy of team Quest came to Xi’an to help, my friend, a 6 ft. 1 HW, Oscar Liu participated the training camp, cut down from 250 lbs in 6 weeks, fought at 205 for the first time, and despite the dec. loss, he described the weight cutting methods Pat gave him to be refreshing, and considering a drop to 185 now.)

And training quality, and nutrition:fighters have no idea how to eat well, one of the best kickboxer in China, Xu Yan(who knocked out Youichiro☆Jienotsu☆Nagashima at K-1 event), has a skinny physique, and not in a Jon Jones way.
Purple/blue belts can open gyms, because not many blackbelts are willing to came here, but we got a couple of quality blackbelts this year, hope it keeps coming in year ’12.

And the most important of all, MMA only exists in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, and if you count Hong Kong. We ain’t so familiar with Taiwan but they got some MMA going too.
In other parts of China(Which covers like, 98% percent of the landscape), MMA is non-exsitent. Fighting too, you can hardly find MT/Judo/Boxing gyms in other parts of China, let alone BJJ. TKD is everywhere and taught to kids and girls, but it’s a litte less effective, to say the least. People just don’t care about fighting in China.

And traditional martial arts are becoming a thing elders practicing daily in parks, those self-claimed masters maybe duel once or twice in their lives(and judging from those videos, they are just bad), and never sparred anymore. So if you want a Kungfu fighter in UFC, better keep an eye on Bruce Leeroy or Lorenz Larkin, rather than an Asian.

I can't speak for Japan/Korea, and they are definetelly ahead of us, but they are still far behind Brazil/USA, and that’s why Okami and Akiyama are hooking up with American gyms.